(02-27-2023 10:13 PM)KevMo4UAB Wrote: The PGA Tour was probably happy to get rid of a few of those players.
They might say that publicly, or at least act like it, but they aren't happy. Several of those guys draw a lot of eyeballs. Bryson, Brooks, DJ, Phil, plus a lot of guys who are popular in Europe, like Sergio Garcia, Louis Oosthuizen, Ian Poulter. Even guys people love to hate, like Patrick Reed. They draw attention, which draws sponsors, which draws money. Losing these guys no doubt affects the bottom line. Which is why under the new PGA Tour format, the top players contractually bound themselves to the elevated events.
What is lost in all this is the fact that Phil Mickelson got exactly what he was wanting- to reshape the PGA. (And when I say PGA, I mean the PGA Tour) Love him or hate him, love LIV or hate it, love or hate the way it went down- Phil said in those widely criticized remarks that he wanted to reshape the way the PGA operated. And he did it.
What LIV did was empower the players. That's why when the players that stayed with PGA circled the wagons and made demands, they got them. The "elevated events" have bigger purses, and to get that the top players had to agree to play them all, because like I said above: top players=eyeballs=sponsors=money for the purse. But by agreeing to play those events, the players have to play less minor tournaments. Just like the LIV model- less play for the same money, more time at home. In a way, they players who stayed with the PGA should be thanking the players that left, because without LIV, it would be status quo.
Again, I'm not endorsing good, bad, right or wrong. It's just the cold, hard economic facts of what has gone down in the last year. It's been as interesting a time as I can remember in golf.